Meetings

RANSOMES SPORTS AND SOCIAL CLUB

 MEETING 20

 26 June 2007

 In attendance:   31 members; apologies: Ray C and Ian B. 

This evening the Club broke the 30 barrier with 31 members in attendance!  Fair enough, 3 of those attending were new faces and we take time to welcome them here.  We hope that we will have a long and fruitful relationship with our new friends, who were, in no particular order: Andrew Toomey, who seems to recognise the Secretary – those wanted posters are clearly catching up, Dave Coley whose output of models has apparently dwindled, but his photo-album full of nostalgia from Mildenhall’s past went down well and Paul Jenkinson, with whom the Secretary only managed a truncated chat – despite having been in e-mail contact – and so we have yet to discover Paul’s forte.  Welcome one-for-all…

 THE TABLE

 Pictures of the models can be seen at http://www.ipms-ipswich.org.uk/meetings.htm

COMPETITION

 May 2007

 * - Goes forward to Grand Final

 Modeller of the Year – May 07

 EAMS

 Kelvin appraised us all about the forthcoming EAMS.  The date has been set for Sunday, 14 Oct 07 although the venue has been changed to Maidenhall Sports Centre in Ipswich from the ‘usual’ Stowmarket site; the hall will cost £500 to hire.  Most importantly the bar is on-site however, food remains to be organised and Jan has undertaken to investigate the catering possibilities.  26 clubs have been invited to attend and traders that have confirmed their attendance already stand at 2.  Advertising for the event is already on the Ipswich Council web-site.

 EAMC Report

 The EAMC went off on the 1 Jun 07 without too many undue hitches.  The enthusiasm and commitment of the set-up party was in no doubt as the hall was ready to go by about 17:30 and it just remained to wait nervously for the visitors to arrive.  Sadly, numbers were definitely down on last year due, yet again, to the unbelievably poor timing of the FA and another pointless round-ball game between some overpaid, passionless prima donnas who self-consciously mutter the words of the National Anthem under their breath and a bunch of shaven ladies’ parts; sorry, beautiful Brazilians – or something.  Anyway, there were still 100 models on the display tables for everyone to enjoy and to cast their artisan’s eye over in the judging.  The competition was fairly fierce again, but winners were eventually decided thanks to the hard work of everyone involved in the vote counting.  The winners are shown in the table below.

 2^nd EAST ANGLIAN MODEL COMPETITION - 1 JUNE 2007

 RESULTS

 Special thanks go Rob F and Sonia for steadfastly refusing to budge from the entries table despite visibly wasting away before due to lack of burgers and beer.  Speaking of which, Mike G once again did a sterling task feeding everyone; despite, the gannet-like plunges of Paul C into the tins of burgers and hot-dogs, scattering the punters hither and yon.  Thank you to all those Club members who got stuck in and helped; thanks guys!  Same time next year chaps?  Lookout for pictures and the write-up in MMI…

 Part II

 Barnham Camp

 The Club visit to Barnham Camp for their Open Day began, like everything else the Army at Wattisham has managed to do for us recently, with a cock-up!  The Secretary arrived early at Wattisham to pick-up the minibus only to discover a very blank Orderly Sergeant who, despite turning the Guardroom upside down and ‘phoning every other point of entry on Camp failed to find the keys.  It transpired, on the Monday morning, after a decidedly un-chuffed Secretary burned a hole in the soul of the hapless MT Cpl whose mistake it had been, that the witless buffoon had forgotten to leave the keys at the Guardroom as he himself had briefed.  The Cpl was left in no doubt that had the Secretary still been serving, his slap-dash performance would not have been tolerated and his Boss thought likewise!  Hard-nosed military dinosaur, me - never?  After doubling up in the cars, the now fortuitously small band of members managed to get a message to the boys awaiting pick-up in Bury to set forth alone to Thetford to meet up there.  It was now that we were quite thankful that the take-up on the invitation for the visit had been so poor.  The weather was positively warm, which meant that Ian B in his USMC Vietnam kit was sweating buckets by the time we arrived to see him there, which made him look the part.  Our appropriately light summer attire contrasted sharply to what can only be described as ‘the Nutters’ in their Nazi storm-trooper gear and hob-nailed boots.  ‘Living history’ was alive and well with the ‘squaddies’ playing with their surprisingly ‘grunty’ Universal Carrier and 17 pdr and the slightly disturbing sight of the von Trapp family camping out in the woods in their full Hitler Youth gear.  It was felt that we were lucky not to be displaying our models as Brian’s consistently Yiddish theme might have ended in an international incident or at least in an embarrassing scuffle to which a bemused local Bobby would have been called to arbitrate – only for him to call out the Armed Response Unit when he discovered scalpel-wielding rabid modellers assaulting MG42-armed, dug-in Wermacht troops just for smashing a plastic kit of an Israeli Nesher!  The headlines in the EADT would have been priceless.  It seems that the organisers had either thought of this potential problem earlier, and therefore did not invite us, or indeed had experienced it before, since the ‘Germans’ were up a hill and generally out of sight of the public!  The remainder of the collection that included the heavy armour on this historically interesting site is quite extensive and well worth a visit, to quote Blue Peter.  The Secretary’s recent descent into the ‘Dark-side’ of all that is ‘targets’ was worryingly hurried as he rushed to photograph all of the machines that in some cases had literally been used for just that purpose after their useful lives were over.  The crumpled skirts and smashed barrel of the Comet indicated that it had been rolled several times – just the modelling gold dust required for that armoured recovery diorama…

Charioteer and Comet – once a target…                          Always a target – another Comet

 But, tanks are tanks and they don’t really possess that charisma that makes you want to love ‘em and hug ‘em and call them George (no offence George) like aeroplanes do; therefore, after a suitably polite period of time we elected to go to the pub!  After a worryingly long drive, a pub that wasn’t closed or being refurbished was located on the journey home and lunch was taken together, which was nice…

Overall, this was a good day out with generally something for most and it was marred only by the small Club attendance and the lack of transport.  Perhaps next year it might pay to reappraise our ambitions?

 AOB

 There was no other business – for a change!  Therefore, the boys went to the bar and the Secretary tore himself away to go and listen to a bunch of Army tosspots in Apaches blah away his life into the wee hours…There’s another 4 hours of my life I won’t get back!

 NEXT MEETING

 The next meeting will be held on Tuesday, 27 Mar 07.

 (Original Signed)

Kev Baxter

Secretary